As any review should be, I promise not to spoil anything about the book in question…

I can’t be upset with anyone going back to a tapped well for more.

The easy criticism is that J.K. Rowling, the multi-millionaire creator of the Harry Potter universe, wasn’t making enough from the iconic series…

But that would be looking past the fact that she created these characters. She plotted out their lives and likely lived in their skin for years and years and years. Yes, the story she crafted came to completion, but the sun will come out tomorrow and there is always more.

 

More ideas. More thoughts about this or that. More that can happen after the proverbial Happily Ever After. That same Happily in a future that left us looking at Harry and his wife Ginny, escorting their children to Platform 9 3/4 for the Hogwarts Express.

Both the books and the movie series closed this way in a closing that was universally accepted as an acceptable finish. I say this because it’s not as easy at it seems. Ask anyone who read the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charmaine Harris.

Better known as the Sookie Stackhouse series that eventually was adapted into True Blood on HBO. But if you read the books first (and were close enough to the ground from the hump of your high horse to breathe), you can recall exactly when they diverted from the book’s original path.

But as I peered down from my high horse for the final season, I noticed they held fast with the same disappointing close. It is extremely elitist to decides that since I’ve read your work and love it, I should be made happy with the close.

I was happy with the close of the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer. I read the Bloody Jack series by L.A. Meyer and felt he stuck the landing with Jacky “set to marry” Jaimy. But in both instances, the author left an opening for the story to continue.

That Harry Potter’s story continues on a stage instead of a screen changed the aspect for the story in an interesting way. Since you’re reading the play book, items, actions and visuals your imagination would supply in a book or the director and cinematographer would create are listed in black and white.

So you’re told that Platform 9 3/4 is “covered in thick white steam pouring from the HOGWARDSS EXPRESS”. It doesn’t seem like much and because many have already seen the movie, it’s natural to superimpose that visual to the words.

This was all said with one thing in mind. The central magical item in the third book of the series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, is the foundation of the confilcts within this story.

“Is that really what my hair looks like from the back?” is one of the best lines in the series for Hermione Granger, who had a bunch of them. She doesn’t get much in the Cursed Child because it isn’t her story. We follow Harry’s second son and his issues with the expectations of his family’s name and legacy.

I enjoyed going back into this magical universe, but this story is essentially a family drama on multiple fronts with moving parts like the staircases inside Hogwarts. A quick read since it’s a play, and one where the audience seemingly enters without requiring an explanation for the importance of a wand.

If you’ve caught the 20-year anniversary bug (Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone was published June 26, 1997), enjoyed the eight-movie series or visited The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando; this  is a great continuation of said World and worth the time.